Repairing leaks and nasty surprises

We had some water troubles last week. I guess the mice were a blessing in disguise, because if it wasn't for them, we'd never have found out!

Under the house, the mains-pressure pipe leading to the shower and bath was a big wet mess.



The leak was quite bad. The ground was wet and it even made its way into the sand in the "main bedroom". Marty couldn't quite reach it under the house, so one of the only options we could think of was to pull apart the shower wall in the bathroom above and access the water pipes that way.

Unfortunately, when we pulled off the wall, we found that the pipes were concreted-in to the wall. We got the cold-chisel and hammer out and began chipping away at the concrete. I needs to come out anyway, I suppose.



The concrete was very hard and quite thick, so Marty got out the drill. It really did help! We took turns in chipping away at the concrete.



We tried to be careful not to hit the pipes (we only knocked it twice - no leaks!). It seems as though previous owners of the house chipped away at the brick quite deeply to get the pipes in for the bathroom. Such a shame, as the bricks will now need to be replaced.





We were able to take off the pipe we needed and repair the leaking mains pipe. The rest of the chipping away will have to wait until we're ready to start the bathroom renovations. In the meantime, we've put everything back (nearly) the way it was. The pipe under the house now looks much drier!



Well, at least it's not raining.. hmm. :)